Proceedings of Communications in the 80's: Major Issues, April 29-May 1, 1984

Dean Tudor is a journalism professor at the Ryerson Polytechnical
Institute and founding editor of the CBRA.

This is a collection of papers given by a number of academics, civil servants, and industry executives on a wide-ranging series of themes. Twenty-two speakers in five sessions covered jurisdiction (with representatives from government), competition (with speakers from the communications carrier industry), the role of regulatory agencies, the structure of the Albertan communications industry (with local people), and “the future.” Overall conclusions? There is a need to achieve harmony among the groups, and this can be done by changing communications policy in Canada. At present, this is an overregulated area, clearly showing the difficulties raised by the new Canadian Constitution. Changes can be implemented, according to several suggestions made at the conference, by agency co-operation, testing in the courts, holding Federal-Provincial First Ministers Conferences on communication policy, lobbying, and electing the right sort of government. People pretty well agreed that the future looked promising.